MargenI went back to the village after thirty years. I got off the bus with a small suitcase and a large heart, ready to be embraced like the prodigal son.
On the way to the square I greeted the baker, the old schoolmistress, the postman. They all looked at me with that distant courtesy reserved for strangers. Nobody recognised me.
It hurt, but I told myself that time disfigures anyone.
As I passed the cemetery, on the first headstone, the one facing the road, I read my own name carved into the stone. And the date: the very day when, thirty years earlier, I had promised to come back.
Then I remembered the accident on the bend, just outside the village. And at last I understood why I had taken so long.